Eva unites us all. (Much better than the Olympics.)

Holy balls. Firstly, as if it needs to be pointed out, things in this movie have irrevocably changed from the TV Series. So different are the events in this movie, that, even with the 30 second preview at the end of the film, I have no clue what’s going to happen in the next movie (which will be called Evangelion Q, Quickening). Another thing is that things that were considered mysteries of the original TV series and movies are either gone altogether, changed, or spelled out.

I went to a 7:20pm showing of the movie at a 109 Cinemas, bought a T-shirt and one of the Eva Extra 04, then a coke that had a plugsuit Asuka sitting on top (similar to the ones from 1.0 that had Rei and Eva-01), and of course, a theatrical program. The theatre was the largest I’ve ever been to and it happened to have Bach’s Air playing. Then some trailers, a warning about the jail sentence you’d get if you tried to use a camera during the movie, the usual stuff.

A lot of the visuals were eye popping stunning. However, there were times that it looked a bit grainy, kind of like an image that had been upscaled. The music was a bit hit or miss, with some corny music playing at seemingly inappropriate times. But when it was hit, it was really good, especially the music that played at the end of the Bardiel and Zeruel fight.

The movie starts with pure action, and as expected from seeing the trailers, there was a good bit of action throughout this movie. To balance it all out, there is also some character interaction and development, enough to flesh out the characters like Asuka and Mari. I especially liked the cuts of Tokyo-3 bustling and filled with people doing their thing and living their lives. Asuka seemed much more likeable, probably closer to the definition of tsundere. Rei smiles a lot more and her caring of Shinji is made obvious. Asuka’s animosity towards Rei is, in no small part, due to Shinji. Mari is crazy, and she has a nice rack. Kaji got an unexpectedly large amount of screen time and seems to play a bigger role than in the TV series (whether this is true is yet to be seen). There’s also a good bit of Penpen, who does a bit of “almost” talking.

Overall, great movie, I enjoyed it quite a bit. For people who want spoilers, click on the “Discuss” link at the bottom.